ON THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NATO ALLIANCE
Guarded from the people who elected them
and pay their wages, behind the high walls
of what was a country estate whose owners
hunted foxes for the fun, and answered
only to death and to penury,
the heads of state, with drums and with trumpets,
celebrate their fealty to weaponry –
while Australia’s forests are burning,
and bergs slip from glaciers into oceans
north and south, and melt discreetly, swiftly,
and Victoria Falls is silent, dry,
the plunging waters that were The Smoke
that Thunders, The Place of the Rainbow,
the plummeting river that became the Nile.
Alex Cox
December 28, 2019Very apt. There is also a case to be made for a satirical praise-fest of NATO in the style of McGonagall:
In Nineteen Hundred and Fifty Two
The Free Nations of the world set out to do
Something which had never occurred before in the history of man:
A military Alliance dedicated to peace! That was the plan.
In Nineteen Hundred and Fifty Four
The Russians came knocking at NATO’s door
Asking to be allowed to join up, too.
“No way,” said we, “We need an enemy, and it must needs be you.”
And so on for 94 more lines. Happy new year!
Clive Watkins
January 1, 2020Your last seven lines ought surely to be the defining context for any decision human beings make about their communities as we move into a future our past has collectively undermined. (It is a context that very much “places” the writing and reading of verse – say I, who have read and written verse throughout my life.) Any leader who does not take due cognizance of this fact deserves to be challenged. I am, however, profoundly pessimistic about these things.